Courtesy of the Eric Sloane Estate Wandering abandoned farmsteads and rebuilding stone walls (a favorite hobby), Sloane made more discoveries: old tools, tucked away in the corner of a hayloft or hanging on some forgotten peg. He found a bog-iron gouge that had been long hidden in a stone fence and marveled at the durability of the tool to survive rust-free for centuries. In these tools, he found his deepest connection with the past. Courtesy of the Eric Sloane Estate “When we consider tools, we are dealing with human benefactors of the most primary sort. Tools increase and vary human power; they economize human time, and they convert raw substances into valuable and useful products. So when we muse on...
“Coopering is a harsh mistress,” my master would always say. If you step away from the trade for any length of time, it takes a while to “get your hand back into it.” Coopering exacts a physical toll on its practitioners as well. A 19th-century London sociologist wrote, “Coopers become prematurely old, suffering greatly from pains in the chest, and across the back, attributable to their bending over their hot work. A cooper at large work is an old man, sir, at forty…his physical energies then are nearly exhausted.” But at the same time, Mr. Pettengell often compares the act of coopering to an elegant dance. Producing stout oak casks requires brute strength, but also a dancer’s grace, efficient movements,...
Photo by Gordon Baer. Courtesy of Kentucky Folk Art Center Archives. Chester Cornett was an anachronism in post-World War II Appalachia. While so much of the region had begun its slow introduction to the trends of modern American culture, Cornett lived a close-to-the-ground lifestyle, complete with bare feet, overalls, and a wild mane of hair. When Gurney Norman wrote a lengthy piece in the Hazard Herald in 1965 about this largely unknown Appalachian chairmaker titled “Rare Hand-Made Furniture Produced by Bearded Chairmaker,” he set off a chain of events that would shape the next two decades of that chairmaker’s life. Cornett (1913-1981), was a native of the remote Appalachian hollows and hills who spent the better part of his life making all...
“Children are hard-wired to create. Any parent who has discovered a fort made of couch cushions, waded through a pile of Legos, or swept bits of paper, glitter, and dried glue knows this well. When kids are offered time in a full-blown woodshop, most leap at the opportunity. Our children need to learn to work with their hands. They need the freedom to work in the shop, to saw boards (with real saws), and nail together whatever they can dream up. When kids learn to work wood they develop manual dexterity, yes. But more than that, woodworking is an opportunity to cultivate the patience, discipline, and independence that distinguishes a well-balanced individual. These experiences often have lasting effects. Most every...
The past few days, Mike and I have seen on social media that M&T Issue Five has begun arriving at customers’ mailboxes. It is always rewarding to see our readers excited to get the new issue and dive in right away. As many of you know, the fancy brown wrapping and trade card with wax seal is the effort of many enthusiastic readers and friends. Without the 20 or so people that block out their weekend to help, it would probably take Mike and me two weeks of work to wrap the thousands of copies that need to go out. This work party tradition came about from a vision to take something necessary and potentially uninspiring (wrapping and shipping magazines) and...
If you are looking to pre-order Issue Five (with wrapping, trade card, and free shipping), today (Tuesday 18th) is your last opportunity. Starting Wednesday, Issue Five will be sold without the wrapping and free shipping.
To get your order in on time, there are two ways to do it:
1. Subscribe for a year (2 issues)
2. Order Issue Five individually
We will begin shipping Issue Five this weekend and expect that you will see your copy in your mailbox during the first week of October.
- Joshua
If you are looking to pre-order Issue Five (with wrapping, trade card, and free shipping), you only have through next Tuesday to do it. After September 18th, Issue Five will be sold without the wrapping and free shipping. To get your order in on time, there are two ways to do it: 1. Subscribe for a year (2 issues) 2. Order Issue Five individually This issue’s got a fascinating combination of traditional coopering, Norse Sea Chest construction, Chester Cornett, Japanese woodworking, Eric Sloane, and more. Check out the full table of contents here. We are so excited about this new issue and can’t wait to get it into your hands! The packing party to ship this issue out will be...
As of this afternoon, Issue Five has been sent off to the printer. That, of course, means that the next Packing Party is right around the corner! For those of you who haven’t heard, with each new issue of the magazine, comes the fine, established tradition of the Mortise & Tenon Packing Party! We have folks travel from all over to come to our new workshop in Sedgwick, Maine to help wrap each new issue in brown paper, affix a special trade card with wax seal, and place it in a mailer with a handful of pine plane shavings. Everyone shares good food (wood-fired pizza, home-baked goodies, and more), locally-roasted coffee, excellent conversation, and an overall fantastic time. We...
We are excited to announce Issue Five is now available for pre-order in our store!
If you don’t already have a subscription, you can sign up here.
or
If you want to pre-order only this issue, you can do so here.
This pre-order window will close after Tuesday, September 18th. After that date, the shipping charge will be applied and there will be no brown paper and wax-sealed wrapping.
Note: Pre-orders for Issue Five open tomorrow morning! First thing in the morning (eastern time), we will be releasing the brand new cover art and begin taking orders. As always, all pre-orders and subscriptions will get the special brown paper wrapping and wax-sealed trade card with the new issue. Scheduled delivery of this issue is late September. If you haven’t yet signed up for a yearly subscription (offering free shipping and a discounted cover price), you can do so here right now. See you in the morning! We are so excited to be launching our fifth issue! 10,000 Hours: A Journey into Japanese Woodworking by Kim Choy Every woodworking journey begins with a step. But setting out in pursuit of 10,000 hours...
